Who doesn’t love road trips, right?
Long journeys, country music, finger food, and great company become even more special when we have long, smooth roadways, which are usually known as highway bridges.
Let us learn a bit more about these.
What is a highway bridge?
A highway bridge is a significant road structure designed to cross over or underneath an obstacle, such as a road, waterbody, or other structure.
A highway bridge is a seamless road structure that is designed a bit differently than the roads. So, a highway bridge is built differently, designed to go OVER or UNDER a given road, waterbody, or structure. Jargon-wise, these structures are known as Obstacles. We come across these highway bridges in our day-to-day lives. For instance, we use bridges to travel across the local water bodies, lakes, rivers, or massive drainages.
In this article, we will learn all about highway bridges. It is no hidden fact that highway bridges are made for the population’s accessibility. Also, in most cases, these highway bridges do not allow pedestrians, only vehicles. For the same reason, highway bridges are usually not even built with pedestrian walking space. The reason is that these structures are merely constructed to create accessibility for vehicles, like commuter cars, trucks, and vans, to move freely across obstacles.
The highway bridges are an architectural epitome that civil engineers build. It is an elaborative process initiated by planning this highway bridge’s design. But here’s the fact! Not all highway bridges are the same. There can be massive differences in the respective structures based on several factors, such as the distance to be covered, the width of the bridge, the weight load to be handled, and the location of the highway bridge, to name a few.
Longest highway bridge in the world?
The longest highway bridge is The Bang Na to Bangpakong Expressway, which runs through Bangkok. The box girder bridge measures 55km long. The highway bridge was opened in February 2000 at $1bn.
What are highway bridges called? In the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries, they are called overpasses, overbridges, or flyovers.
Also, designing these highway bridges determines one essential aspect: whether the structure is to be made above the roads or whether it will be built underneath the establishment. Another critical element that we discuss in highway bridge design is considering budget constraints and material availability. What an elaborative process this is!
Once the design and contextual planning are done, we will discuss the materials used for such constructions. Highway bridges can be built using several materials. Material selection could depend on requirements, structure dimensions, suitability, and budget.
Various materials, such as steel, concrete, stones, and metal alloys, can be used to build these structures. Timber can also be used in some amounts to create giant forms. Sounds crazy, right? Furthermore, the engineer moves to the structure’s style once the material is picked from the pile. This means these highway bridges are suspension or cable-stayed structures, to name a few. Thus, design and selection are crucial, and every relevant factor should be considered.
Next, in the context of our topic, we bring forth information about the type of highway bridges built. They are primarily made in either of two formations. One is overhead, while the other is known as tunnels. So, let us discuss these briefly.
So, an overhead highway bridge is built across or on the top of another structure. Meanwhile, if we talk about the tunnel design style, it is usually built underneath an existing structure. An example of this could be tunnel structures that permit a highway to run through natural occurrences like mountains or other roads. If a tunnel is less than 0.1 miles, it could be an underpass or chutes.
Composite highway bridge design
Composite construction, which consists of a reinforced concrete deck slab on top of several steel girders, is an efficient and widely used method for highway bridges. There are two common forms of deck-type bridges: multi-girder bridges and ladder deck bridges.
Moving further, let’s talk about another term associated with highway bridges: interchange. Regarding the construction mechanism, we have a complex system consisting of ramps and roads, known as an interchange. So, what does an interchange do?
An interchange is an instrumental construction piece. It helps vehicles switch between different highways, intersecting themselves on the path. Connector ramps are the constructive structures that support the car’s change from one highway to another.
Roadways, Bridges, Highways, and all of these mechanisms are exquisite art and very well thought out! They are designed with a lot of planning, budget, and strategy, and they show their impact in the long term.
Highway bridge inspection
Now that we have discussed highway bridges and their associated terms let’s discuss how to ensure public safety. Highway bridges are made to provide convenience, accessibility, and fast travel to the public. But if the general public is not entirely safe while using this mode of transit, what is its use, right?
The Highway Bridge inspection committee is responsible for pinpointing and identifying minor issues associated with this construction and ensuring that these issues are taken care of. Suitable repairs are made from time to time.
If good, preventive bridge maintenance measures are taken from the beginning of the construction until the time it’s put to use, huge costs and replacements could be avoided. But if the potential risks are higher, then the bridge inspectors must consider the situation and document the situation, the data, and the reports comprehensively to recommend whatever remedial measures would be required.
Some measures could include reducing the traffic at the bridge, standardizing the vehicle weight, or even temporarily closing the bridge until it is completely repaired and restored to maximum functionality.
From 2022 onwards, Mark has also been contributing author of home repair articles at nimblefreelancer.com.
Read more on Mark Brown's biography page.
Contact Mark: mark@nimblefreelancer.com